Priceline converts change to chicken

FIRST it was airline passengers. Now fast food freaks are to benefit from the latest pricing innovation to emerge from the "ideas laboratory" of entrepreneur Jay Walker.

Mr Walker, whose Priceline.com company lets passengers name prices for plane tickets, has turned his attention to fried chicken and cheeseburgers. He has patented "upselling", a practice whereby a customer paying $6.48 for chicken and macaroni with cheese might be confronted by a friendly assistant and offered a drink or a chicken strip in return for his small change from the transaction.

The system provides a cost saving (in this example 77 cents) to the customer, extra income for the chain and a cut for Mr Walker's firm Retail DNA, which collects a royalty on each "upsell". It is being tested at US outlets of Kentucky Fried Chicken and Burger King with software that plugs into cash tills.

According to the Wall Street Journal, one New York Kentucky Fried Chicken branch claims "upselling" has already boosted revenues by 4pc. For Mr Walker, 44, "upselling" is one of thousands of innovations produced at Walker Digital, his private company, which employs 50 inventors to dream up new ways of doing business.